Hey, do you like monsters?

I was six years old and the new kid the neighborhood. One of the kids from my street came up to me one day and asked me the magic question....do you like monsters? I didn't have any experience with them at that point but I was looking to make some friends so I replied that I liked them a lot. This was the start of two very important friendships for me and from that point on there was no looking back. We spent every weekend watching all those great classic horror movies which we were treated to every Friday night on Nightmare Theatre and Sunday mornings on Creature Feature. To say that watching Dracula, Frankenstein and all the ghouls and creepies didn't leave me completely terrified, would be far from fact but I put up a good front and eventually came to see all these monsters on the screen more as friends than foes. We started our own monster club and began bugging our parents for all the great toys the 70's had to offer. Aurora monster model kits were our main target and the Creature was my first score. Sure you have the re-issues today from polar lights and thank god for those, but if only I had locked those originals away for my future collection. If only.